Film Releases & Second Editions
We have been overwhelmed at Richard Byrne Inc. by the whirlwind of front page news surrounding the recovery of the plaintext of the K4 strand of the Kryptos statue in Langley, Virginia. One highlight was the Daily Express labeling Jarett Kobek and myself as "complete amateurs." (The best account is still our joint interview at the amazing Zona Motel.)
Yet there have been glad tidings on other fronts in recent weeks.
First, The Drowned Girl has found a streaming home on the Relay platform.
I finished this meditation on memory, art, and complicity with evil in the Nazi film industry in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. As I worked together with Pandora Machine director Andrew Bellware and producer Laura Schlachtmeyer on a series of short monologues that became Plays Pandemical, The Drowned Girl eventually became the script for a film starring Annalisa Loeffler in the title role.
We shot The Drowned Girl in late 2021 in a socially-distanced manner as Omicron descended on the United States. It took a few years to make it happen at last. But we are very proud of the film, which you can watch at any time on Relay.
Another great bit of news? A second printing of the bilingual edition of my play, Hotel Mayflower, has appeared from Germany's Moloko Print. The play also had its first reading in German at the Literaturhaus am Inn in Innsbruck in late September.
Hotel Mayflower asks hard questions about the artist's role in politics. Can a writer change the world with words? Or should the author stand apart from levers of power? The world of 1939 that is presented in the play is not far from our own. It's a landscape of political refugees and exiles, growing fascism, and relentless attempts to erase and rewrite history.
A successful first edition meant a new run for the play, which features a translation into German by Berlin writer Mark Kanak. And don't let the global postal catastrophe get in your way! European readers can order from Sea Urchin. U.S. readers can find a copy at Water Row Books. And you can always get a copy direct from Moloko.
Also: Stay tuned for some very big news about Congressman Davy: the musical about Davy Crockett's time as a legislator in Washington DC that I have written with Dean Schlabowske (Waco Brothers, Deano & Jo).
There will be some Sesquicentennial activities for Davy, for sure. But for now, have a listen to one of the songs from the show – "Poison Pens" – as performed by Deano and Jo.
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